Booze cruise: Bar floats into town, provides free alcohol post-Sandy

Residents of Gerritsen Beach, in Brooklyn, got an unexpected bonus from Superstorm Sandy in the form of free liquor. And instead of the town bellying up to the bar, in this case the bar bellied up to the town.

The New York Post reported on the wild ride. Sandy’s force caused the bar to come unmoored from a marina on Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn. It traveled two miles through waterways to Gerritsen Beach, where one resident saw it rushing toward his house. Luckily, it stopped in the middle of a street.

Residents of the hard-hit neighborhood found the bar mostly intact, including chairs, tables and bottles of booze. So they celebrated with a party at the newly-renamed “Sandy’s Bar,” and when the alcohol ran out, they wrote “B.Y.O.B.” on the side of the bar.

“We had a big party. We had nothing else to do while we were waiting for everything else to dry, and this was a great opportunity to get our minds off everything,” resident Michael Sarrell told the Post.

The authorities ended the party — don’t they always? — as the structure was torn down on Saturday.

With the bar gone, the neighborhood needs different kinds of relief. A recent post on the Gerritsen Beach web site says the area needs supplies, manpower, and “for the love of everything holy…COFFEE.”

Despite the fun times at “Sandy’s Bar,” Gerritsen Beach faces a tough rebuilding task. It’s near the wiped-out area of Breezy Point and suffered devastation of its own. Here are some of the scenes from the neighborhood: